Despite being on my sabbatical, I’ve had little time alone this year. I’m not complaining, exactly. I’m adjusting. Committing to life with someone means compromise…sometimes a lot of compromise.

But now? Now he’s off playing his annual poker game with his golfing crew and I’m sitting on the cold concrete stoop in the sun and unseasonable temps. I’m wearing socks Kim’s mom knitted and Crocs and sweats that match neither. I have mascara from last night still holding lashes in place (albeit not in the shape intended) and giving me that crazed NY hipster look that completely clashes with my otherwise hideous hair and outfit.

I can hear a plane thousands of feet above me taking people home and away, and a few birds chattering and probably asking each other why they didn’t migrate. A MARTA train is rolling down the tracks just far enough away to sound romantic and rumbly, and I am trying to find peace of mind away from the cats for reflecting.

It’s been a hell of a year for us, mostly in a good way but with a lot of upheaval and growth in unexpected places (including but not limited to my waistline). We staged the house, we looked for houses, we made offers and we were disappointed. We moved to an apartment we looked at more houses, we looked at land in North Carolina and we were disappointed more. We bought the condo and worked for several months with a team of amazing people to make it into a home.

We lost Amber and brought Monty home. We struggled with The Mc’s moms deteriorating physical and mental health. I let go of some friendships and rekindled half a bijillion old ones, making new ones along the way. I got sucked into facebook and twitterville, and enjoyed every second of it. I took a metric shit ton of photographs no one will ever see, and knitted far less than I intended. My blogging atrophied, possibly the side effect of happiness, but more likely the side effect of being too busy to sleep and always having a kitten in my lap if I was home long enough to sit down.

I brought my relationship with the Big G to a new level, and branded my skin to celebrate it. I washed the gray right out of my hair, and let it come back like a college aged child on summer break.

In the next year, I don’t know what I’ll do or who I’ll be on the other end but I know this: there will be more love, more laughter, less taking myself so damn seriously at work (and IRL), more travel, more reading, more knitting and more photography.

There will be more time with friends and hopefully family, marking the miles and the days with laughter that makes your face hurt and stories that will keep me warm when I’m old(er).

I hope the same for you. I hope that this year you feel more love in your heart than you ever have. I hope that the world brings you unexpected and wonderful surprises. I hope that any bad is washed over with waves of good and that our soul is able to recognize it when it’s presented.

Happy new year, everyone…and thanks for keeping me company on the ride.

My family had what I can only assume was a standard tree decorating day somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas. My folks and the four of us kids would gather around and we’d pull our ironicly fake tree out of the box and color match the branches to the holes. We’d help dad unravel the lights and run them down the hall from the living room to the end where my parents bedroom was, one by one trying to find the broken lamps to replace. We each had our favorite ornaments mom would hand us to hang, and the last step was my brother Brian’s little electric train - complete with engine, coal car, freight car, passenger car and caboose - that would round the bottom of the tree.

On Christmas eve, we were allowed to pick one present from under the tree to open, and I’m sure my parents hoped; to silence us enough to sleep.

Christmas morning the first act of the day was to “find” baby Jesus (he stayed in one of moms decorative woven Indian baskets until then) and carry him to his manger while we sung happy birthday. The nativity set is brown and ceramic, with my parents initials etched with the date in the bottom of Mary, Joseph, and the manger. They made the set when they were first married, before children, before relocation to Alaska and before the electric train.

The tradition ended as my family dissolved somewhere older than five and younger than thirteen. The gap solidifies that I will never be asked to recount our family history at a reunion.

I still have some of the ornaments, but I’ve long since stopped putting up a tree, this year I got more festive than I have in years past and bought a rope of garland with lights built in. I wrapped it around my banana plant/tree and piled gifts around.

It’s the first year in many that the nativity isn’t out - it’s somewhere in the back of one of our storage units - and that I won’t be carriying baby Jesus to his manger…but I will sing and I will close my eyes tight to remember those years of innocence and to reflect on what the holiday was intended for.

I’m thankful for what’s left of my family and for the new family I’ve formed with The Mc and my friends. I’m thankful for my health, my home, and most of all I’m thankful for Gods grace.

Tomorrow we’ll go to a movie, maybe have a beverage at Limerick Junction (as we did last year and the year before with friends), dinner at Atkins Park or a trek for Chinese. There may be lime sherbert and Creme de Minthe to sip out of fancy glasses in the afternoon, like my dad used to make (looking to my siblings to tell me if we got the Creme de Minthe too…?) and a lot of lounging about in pajamas. Tonight I’m going to roll around in the darkness and take snaps of Christmas lights.

What are the traditions you’ve hung on to? What are the new ones you’ve created?

I shouldn’t be posting. I shouldn’t be on line. But I am.

A few snaps while I’m here, along with happy happy holiday wishes for those of you who haven’t given up on me yet and still come back…

The last thing I won was a super superlative in 8th grade as “most energetic”, so you can imagine my confusion when @HamWithCam twittered last week shortly after my departure from an Atlanta Photography meet-up that I’d won a prize.

I was only there long enough to say a few hellos and enjoy a cocktail before I had to run out the door for a friends debut art showing at a library downtown. He’d been working with various mediums - photos, contact sheets, paper, ink, oils - for years. For years and hanging some in his house, leaving a good bit out of sight where he’d work on it in private as he examined his own psyche.

The risk he took putting himself out there nearly gave me an anxiety attack. He decided he was going to do it, reached out and let himself float into the unknown. I watched him with awe in the weeks between the decision and the reality and was dizzy and inspired. I’ve thought about/wanted to/couldn’t do/too scared over a dozen times out here right before your eyes…you’ve watched me want and you’ve watched me turn to stone.

How ironic then, that the prize (I’m still fairly sure @HamWithCam somehow manipulated) given to me by APE is free entry to display my work in a booth at an upcoming show. Ham has been trying to encourage me for months - every time I see him he gently nudges with supportive words and information on how to make it happen but again I’m paralyzed: not good enough/not enough time/too much.

Well, at least one of those excuses has now been officially removed from my path. Entry fee paid, space allocated. Here we go, grab your parka.

I broke down a week or so ago and picked up my Christmas present to myself: an iPhone.

I like to be an early adopter, but I don’t like to spend money. Quandary. I labored about it for months, weeks, ran the numbers and talked myself out of it. Ran the numbers, talked myself into it. Out of it. Into it. But it might inspire me to run again. Into it. Twitter addition. Into it. Math. Out of it. Corporate discount into it. Into it into it into it.

So I’ve become one of them, and I’ve got a list of my favorite apps. I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.

- BriteKite
- Camera Bag
- Handshake
- Twittelator
- Shazam
- Flycast
- Pandora
- Public Radio
- White Noise
- Wikipanion
- Amazon
- Map my run
- Cube Runner
- Moonlight lite
- More Cowbell
- Lightsaber

(ht to Tessa for most of these…)

So? Spill it.

While we wait? You can hit me on my iPhone or just enjoy this lovely snap I took in the dentists chair playing with CameraBag last week while waiting for the pre-numb to kick in. You’re welcome.

Try not to loose your head today.

What is this? A day to myself? Blogging bluemia? Yes! The Mc is in south GA, friends are at work, me with hours upon hours of time to do whatever I please and maybe catch you up on the black hole of energy the condo has been? Glorious.

Nearly a year and a half ago I sold my condo and moved in with The Mc. Wow. It seems like it’s been a lot longer. Huh. Anyway, while the McMansion (heh heh) aka The Big House was lovely, it was far removed from the city - my city - and my friends. It was a lightning magnet in a land of SUV’s and fifteen minute trips to the closest grocery store. That’s charming when you’re in the country, but not when you’re in suburbia. Sure, I had fun emasculating and castrating him, but we both knew that our life together in a house too big for even a family of five was only temporary. Soon we’d be starting our life and building a home together. Little did he know it would be just around the corner from my old condo in a part of town he used to fondly refer to as “Shanksville”.

After nearly a year of looking at every ill kept POS in the area of town he really wanted, the universe pointed us here…and here is where we’ve built our life.

Some snaps of the our abode…before, during and after. Please to enjoy - as my seester would say - I finally am. After a year and a half plus or minus five months of construction/living in an apartment/nesting, I *finally* have a home for clothes, shoes, kitchen stuffs and kitties that feels like - and is - my own.

Before:

After:

The space between.

Happiness is: being home for the holidays.